THE WOOD-PIGEON 281 



weed. There can be no doubt that this bird does more 

 good than harm and \ve will, therefore, encourage and 

 protect it. 



It is still common in Hungary. 



It is common in some parts of England, but is very 

 local in its visitations and is only a summer visitor. A 

 " Son of the Marshes," says, " It is common enough 

 in some parts of Surrey. I have seen from ten to thirty 

 of them rise from the standing oats, or from the long 

 grass in the hayfield, at one flight. One of my friends 

 shot a couple as they were rising from the oats, and 

 opened their crops. Not a single grain of oat did he 

 find in them. They were full of a little vetch that grew 

 abundantly at the roots of the oats, or, to express it in 

 true rustic agricultural phrase, ' at the stam o' the 

 whuts.' I was with the man at the time; after that 

 examination of the birds' crops he declared he would 

 never shoot another pigeon." 



Another member of this family, the beautiful Ring 

 Dove or Wood Pigeon (Cohimba palumbus), called 

 Queest in Ireland, and Cushat in the North, because 

 of its soft notes, is a bird that we could ill-spare from 

 our woods and coppices. It is, however, an undeniable 

 fact that the members of this voracious species have 

 increased of late years in a manner which is alarming 

 to the hard-working farmer. Many writers have taken 

 up the cudgels in defence of these birds on account 

 mainly of the amount of noxious weeds, wild mustard 

 seed, and leaves they devour, but, as that great natur- 

 alist, the late Lord Lilford, wrote, in sending me a 

 little box of the contents of the crops of three birds 

 extracted by himself: " In a highly-farmed country 



